There are a few good ones out there. Zoe Lofgren in CA and Ron Wyden in OR both seem to have a solid grasp on internet technology and have for the most part been on the correct side of things in terms of debates and legislature concerning it.

"Come on, Louie. 'Cat' - C-A...""Benghazi!""For the fortieth time, no. Look, try sounding it out in your head: 'cat'. Ca-tuh. What letter makes the 'tuh' sound, Louie?""Global warming is a hoax perpetuated by communists and gays to steal our military technology!""[sigh] Yes. Fine. Whatever. Have some paste - '010 was a good year."

As stupid as Gohmert comes off in this clip, it's not even on the top 100 list of stupidest things that farking moron had said. The motherfarker is so dumb I doubt he can even tie his own shoes without help.

In other words, he's a perfect representative for his constitutents in the great state of Texas.

Cyberluddite:As stupid as Gohmert comes off in this clip, it's not even on the top 100 list of stupidest things that farking moron had said. The motherfarker is so dumb I doubt he can even tie his own shoes without help.

In other words, he's a perfect representative for his constitutents in the great state of Texas.

Dr Dreidel:MaudlinMutantMollusk: Gohmert couldn't spell CAT if you spotted him the C-A-_

"Come on, Louie. 'Cat' - C-A...""Benghazi!""For the fortieth time, no. Look, try sounding it out in your head: 'cat'. Ca-tuh. What letter makes the 'tuh' sound, Louie?""Global warming is a hoax perpetuated by communists and gays to steal our military technology!""[sigh] Yes. Fine. Whatever. Have some paste - '010 was a good year."

Oh, come on, at least he's able to spell things out phonetically. Which is why, near the beginning of the thing, he pronounces the word "vendor" as "ven-DOOR."

what_now:This..this is almost exactly how this conversation would go if I tried explaining Google to my dad.

Of course, my dad is a 70 year old high school dropout who spent his whole life a truck driver, not a United States Congressman.

/not dissing my dad. Hardest worker I've ever met.

It seems that the congressman's fundamental misunderstanding is that he thinks Google sells companies lists of people talking about certain things so that those companies can advertise to them, instead of realizing that Google handles it all internally. Somehow he doesn't seem to understand that Google is effectively the advertising agency.

There are companies that sell personal information to third parties for advertising purposes, and that is a worthwhile concern to address, he just picked the wrong person to talk to about it.

TuteTibiImperes:what_now: This..this is almost exactly how this conversation would go if I tried explaining Google to my dad.

Of course, my dad is a 70 year old high school dropout who spent his whole life a truck driver, not a United States Congressman.

/not dissing my dad. Hardest worker I've ever met.

It seems that the congressman's fundamental misunderstanding is that he thinks Google sells companies lists of people talking about certain things so that those companies can advertise to them, instead of realizing that Google handles it all internally. Somehow he doesn't seem to understand that Google is effectively the advertising agency.

There are companies that sell personal information to third parties for advertising purposes, and that is a worthwhile concern to address, he just picked the wrong person to talk to about it.

Yes, and when that person explained it to him, he simply couldn't understand. It's like when someone tries to explain astrophysics to a cat.

TuteTibiImperes:It seems that the congressman's fundamental misunderstanding is that he thinks Google sells companies lists of people talking about certain things so that those companies can advertise to them, instead of realizing that Google handles it all internally. Somehow he doesn't seem to understand that Google is effectively the advertising agency.

There are companies that sell personal information to third parties for advertising purposes, and that is a worthwhile concern to address, he just picked the wrong person to talk to about it.

You're doing a good job defending Google. Also, I would like to state "Benghazi."

Now excuse me, I have to go run for Senate as a Republican in 26 minutes.

I have an uncle who is a Very Successful Job Creator, but is dumber than Sarah Palin's left tit. His yahoo account was hacked, and his daughter told him he should set up a gmail account. His response was incredible: "I am NOT going to use government email!"

Yes. Gmail is obviously a government entitlement. Just look at the G in its name!

Ahhh_Ennui:I have an uncle who is a Very Successful Job Creator, but is dumber than Sarah Palin's left tit. His yahoo account was hacked, and his daughter told him he should set up a gmail account. His response was incredible: "I am NOT going to use government email!"

Yes. Gmail is obviously a government entitlement. Just look at the G in its name!

/css

Tell him to Google "G-Spot" which is a web-site of all the internet spaces used by the Government.

Just one time, I wish someone would answer the teatards questions with, "cause jesus" just to see what they would do. For example:

Graham: "Mr. Hagel, what exactly happened in Benghazi?"Hagel: "Well, senator, I'm gonna have to go with Jesus on this one."Graham: "What does Jesus have to do with that?"Hagel: "Are you questioning Jesus' master plan, Senator Graham? Are you claiming our lord and savior to be infallible?"Graham: (hoisted by his own petard)

Ahhh_Ennui:I have an uncle who is a Very Successful Job Creator, but is dumber than Sarah Palin's left tit. His yahoo account was hacked, and his daughter told him he should set up a gmail account. His response was incredible: "I am NOT going to use government email!"

Yes. Gmail is obviously a government entitlement. Just look at the G in its name!

/css

Delusional help-I'm-being-oppressed types took to calling Gmail Government-Mail because of Google's liberal stances/support of liberal candidates/whatever dumbass reason/excuse not to move from AOL even though it's a great example of failed business and not changing with the times / whatever.

So your uncle heard someone call it Government Mail and took it literally, because of course he would. Because the type of person to believe that in the first place isn't the type to question.

Notice this fancy, big-city lawyer never actually answered the question. How can our privacy be protected from Google if we don't know how their ad machines work? If we don't get some straight talk out of these computer nerds we'll never know how compromised our privacy is by these non existent practices. Comparing apples and oranges? More like comparing Apple and Communism. Same damn goals, different leader. I'll bet 0bamao is smiling in his throne room right now at how Google is selling our private information to ourselves.

Cyberluddite:As stupid as Gohmert comes off in this clip, it's not even on the top 100 list of stupidest things that farking moron had said. The motherfarker is so dumb I doubt he can even tie his own shoes without help.

In other words, he's a perfect representative for his constitutents in the great state of East Texas.

Fixed that for me.We tend to know what technology is here in the Silicon Hills of Austin, Texas.It's a whole 'nother country out there. A no-liquor, God-fearing, retarded cousin-farking country.We might as well give it to Louisiana or Arkansas.

The Google rep is doing a piss-poor job of explaining the situation. If the congressman is ignorant, the Google rep is even worse.

He should have given an example: An advertiser sells cars. If mail comes in with the word "cars" in it, that advertiser's ad will show. But the advertiser does not know who's looking at it any more than an advertiser knows who's looking at one of their billboards on the highway.

As for other questions about the government, the answer is, "No, senator. Google does not work that way and it would be impossible to do what you describe."

I remember showing him how cool Google Street View was one time and he said "Great, so now the government can look in your windows and watch you take a shower? That's dangerous right there."

Oh God, we got my dad a GPS and he got all confused about how the thing knew where his house was, and he didn't like it, not one little bit. We had to take it back.

My dad was convinced the internet was slow because my little sister was downloading anime which had somehow attracted hackers.

I also had a hell of a time trying to explain to an older co worker that if he wanted internet access at his home he had to buy some form of service ("But the laptop is wireless" "Yes, but that just allows it to connect to the router, the router still needs to be connected to an ISP" "But it works here at work" "Because we have internet service here attached to the routers" "So I just have to buy a router? I just want the internet without having to pay money every month" "*Facepalm*")

Maud Dib:Cyberluddite: As stupid as Gohmert comes off in this clip, it's not even on the top 100 list of stupidest things that farking moron had said. The motherfarker is so dumb I doubt he can even tie his own shoes without help.

In other words, he's a perfect representative for his constitutents in the great state of East Texas.

Fixed that for me.We tend to know what technology is here in the Silicon Hills of Austin, Texas.It's a whole 'nother country out there. A no-liquor, God-fearing, retarded cousin-farking country.We might as well give it to Louisiana or Arkansas.

Rapmaster2000:Maud Dib: Cyberluddite: As stupid as Gohmert comes off in this clip, it's not even on the top 100 list of stupidest things that farking moron had said. The motherfarker is so dumb I doubt he can even tie his own shoes without help.

In other words, he's a perfect representative for his constitutents in the great state of East Texas.

Fixed that for me.We tend to know what technology is here in the Silicon Hills of Austin, Texas.It's a whole 'nother country out there. A no-liquor, God-fearing, retarded cousin-farking country.We might as well give it to Louisiana or Arkansas.

[www.ece.utexas.edu image 565x605]

Had a call with ALU-Motive out of there a few months ago.

It's an older poster, but things are hopping around here. We weathered the shiatstorm of the last few years pretty well, job-wise.

"so what if the government wanted to enter a deal where you would send them a list of every person who talks about guns or the NRA in their emails, and the government used that information to find second amendment patriots and then kill them with drone strikes?"

"So what if the President used gmail, and he sent an email to the secretary of state saying, 'great job writing the lies that we used to cover up the fact that my criminal negligence got people killed in Benghazi.' Would google's computers sell that email to advertisers?"

Gohmert is basically a living parody of the utterly stupid, useless congressman.

The fact that Louie Gohmert can refer to anyone else as a simpleton is mind-boggling unless you adhere to the belief that it takes one to know one. The person from Google has to understand that in dealing with many Congressmen over technology issues you have to start with the assumption that they know less than nothing and go from there. They should offer him and his staff a private briefing to explain how it all works.

Dr Dreidel:MaudlinMutantMollusk: Gohmert couldn't spell CAT if you spotted him the C-A-_

"Come on, Louie. 'Cat' - C-A...""Benghazi!""For the fortieth time, no. Look, try sounding it out in your head: 'cat'. Ca-tuh. What letter makes the 'tuh' sound, Louie?""Global warming is a hoax perpetuated by communists and gays to steal our military technology!""[sigh] Yes. Fine. Whatever. Have some paste - '010 was a good year."

For whatever reason, that reminded me of a scene from the Sarah Palin parody porn video where they had a vocal coach try and get Palin to say something besides "you betcha"

what_now:Oh God, we got my dad a GPS and he got all confused about how the thing knew where his house was, and he didn't like it, not one little bit. We had to take it back.

LOL! My mom got dad a GPS but I don't think he could figure it out.

TuteTibiImperes:My dad was convinced the internet was slow because my little sister was downloading anime which had somehow attracted hackers.

I also had a hell of a time trying to explain to an older co worker that if he wanted internet access at his home he had to buy some form of service ("But the laptop is wireless" "Yes, but that just allows it to connect to the router, the router still needs to be connected to an ISP" "But it works here at work" "Because we have internet service here attached to the routers" "So I just have to buy a router? I just want the internet without having to pay money every month" "*Facepalm*")

Wow...

When Wikileaks was all in the news last year, the CFO of the company came up to me and said "Is our network secured from Wikileaks hacking in and downloading our data?" (we are a health insurance brokerage/billing admin firm)

what_now:TuteTibiImperes: what_now: This..this is almost exactly how this conversation would go if I tried explaining Google to my dad.

Of course, my dad is a 70 year old high school dropout who spent his whole life a truck driver, not a United States Congressman.

/not dissing my dad. Hardest worker I've ever met.

It seems that the congressman's fundamental misunderstanding is that he thinks Google sells companies lists of people talking about certain things so that those companies can advertise to them, instead of realizing that Google handles it all internally. Somehow he doesn't seem to understand that Google is effectively the advertising agency.

There are companies that sell personal information to third parties for advertising purposes, and that is a worthwhile concern to address, he just picked the wrong person to talk to about it.

Yes, and when that person explained it to him, he simply couldn't understand. It's like when someone tries to explain astrophysics to a cat.